ZAGREB, 17 March, 2021 - Culture and Media Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek said on Wednesday the Electronic Media Act would be liberalised and that one of the options was allowing the vertical concentration of the media in Croatia.

"We will liberalise that law in the part concerning the regulation of concentration. However, in that case we are considering certain other instruments which generate or ensure media pluralism. I mean the 'must offer' or 'must carry' concepts, but an agreement is yet to be reached on this," she told the press.

The news and programming director of the N1 commercial TV, Tihomir Ladišić, yesterday accused the government of leading to a market monopoly of the two telecoms, A1 and HT, by failing to amend the Electronic Media Act.

His comment came after news that A1 decided to remove N1 from its offer and that it was certain that HT would follow suit.

Asked if the government would allow vertical media concentration, enabling a media publisher to also be a media content operator, which is banned under the current Electronic Media Act, the minister said that was one of the options, adding that the law explicitly banned an operator from also being a media content publisher.

Other media pluralism mechanisms will be introduced

"We are one of the last EU states to have that explicit ban. If we go towards lifting the ban, then some other mechanisms ensuring media pluralism will be introduced," she said.

These mechanisms will enable a company that is both publisher and operator to offer the channel for which it obtained a concession to itself as an operator and to someone else under the same terms.

The minister said such vertical concentration was "what the public can rightfully be afraid of."

She reiterated that A1's decision to remove United Media Group's channels, including N1, from its offer, was strictly a business matter between the two companies, not a matter of legislative regulation.

The minister has a number of times dismissed the argument that the Electronic Media Act did not allow N1 to broadcast on its own platform, saying the law regulates only publishers which have a concession and are established in Croatia.

"N1 is a pay channel which is not established in Croatia and does not have a concession," the minister said.

She would not say what it meant for media democracy in Croatia that N1 was being phased out because two operators decided to remove it from their offers.

"Two days ago I said I believe it's in the public interest that all channels which interest the Croatian public should be available on all operators and I stand by that."

Following news that A1 was cancelling its contract with N1, MPs today called for regulating the telecommunications and media market and resolving contentious issues as soon and as precisely as possible with a new electronic media law.

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ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - The refurbished building housing Rijeka's Maritime Crisis Centre for Faster Response to Any Disaster off Croatia’s Coastline was officially opened on Tuesday.

The investment into the upgrade of this offshore emergency response centre in the biggest Croatian seaport totalled US$ 480,000, and the lion's share of the investment was provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

During the ceremony, the state secretary of the Croatian Sea, Transport and Infrastructure ministry, Josip Bilaver, thanked the U.S. administration and military as well as the US Embassy in Zagreb for this donation in the amount of HRK 3.2 million.

The ministry has invested a million kuna, while the local county authorities provided 100,000 kuna for the project.

"The U.S.-Croatia partnership at sea is essential to the two countries’ NATO military cooperation and shared security. That is why the United States, through the U.S. Military’s European Command (EUCOM), provided assistance to the Croatian Ministry of Sea, Transportation and Infrastructure and the Rijeka Harbor Master’s office to advance training and emergency-response capabilities at sea," the embassy said on its website.

The U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Victoria Taylor, who today joined State Secretary Bilaver for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, expressed satisfaction with the completion of this project.

Over the last decade, the USA has set aside HRK 4.5 billion to support numerous civilian and military projects in Croatia, she said.

The Rijeka centre is described as a a renewed facility that will become "the central point for planning, training, and management in response to emergencies at sea, from supporting persons and vessels in need to addressing maritime accidents and oil pollution."

"The upgraded center will therefore play a critical role in maintaining the safety and environmental stewardship of Croatian coastal waters, ensuring quick action in response to a potential environmental disaster. Protection of the environment is a key priority for both Croatia and the United States, and joint capacity to mitigate against incidents and accidents at sea can make all the difference in a crisis."

The embassy recalls that "Rijeka is already a hub for U.S.-Croatia cooperation, with the port city benefiting economically from nearly 900 million kuna in contracted services by the U.S. Navy for ship maintenance and support since 2011."

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ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - The parliamentary committee on human and national minority rights on Tuesday endorsed a bill on civilian Homeland War victims, whose rights are currently regulated by a law from 1992 which, despite having been amended 12 times, does not cover all civilian victims.

Under the bill, the rights can be exercised by Croatian as well as foreign nationals, provided they were Croatia's residents during the 1991-95 war. It is estimated that the bill will apply to 2,500 more beneficiaries.

Among other things, the bill facilitates eligibility for the family disability allowance and increases the individual disability allowance.

Committee chair Milorad Pupovac (Independent Democratic Serb Party) said it was important that the bill covered all Homeland War victims and that it should define collaborators more precisely.

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ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - The European Commission on Tuesday disbursed €9 billion to seven EU member states, including €510 million to Croatia, in the fifth instalment of financial support to preserve employment during the coronavirus pandemic under the SURE instrument.

This is the second instalment this year. Czechia has received €1 billion, Spain €2.87 billion, Italy €3.87 billion, Lithuania €302 million, Malta €123 million and Slovakia €330 million.

So far, 16 member states have received a total of €62.5 billion under the SURE instrument in loans which the Commission is taking out on financial markets at the best terms.

Croatia received the first instalment of €510 million on 17 November.

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ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - The State Electoral Commission (DIP) has advised companies and citizens who intend to make a donation to participants running in the May local election, to respect the law and take note of the maximum allowable amount that may be donated.

All physical and legal persons intending to donate money, products or services are obliged to register all the relevant information and should be issued with a receipt by the recipient party or independent slate.

Donors must not have any debts to the state or local authorities.

If donations are made in products, then the value of these must be identified.

The maximum amount of a donation for physical entities is HRK 30,000 and for legal entities HRK 200,000. Donations can be made once or in several instalments and must be pad into a separate electioneering account.

Contracts for donations greater than HRK 5,000

Donations of HRK 5,000 or more require a contract to be concluded between the donor and recipient (party or independent slate).

DIP has published guidelines regarding the financing of electioneering which are available at its website.

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ZAGREB, 16 March, 2021 - In her report on 2020, Public Ombudswoman Lora Vidović warns that her recommendations are less and less complied with, which, she believes, can also be attributed to the fact that the parliament has still not discussed her reports for 2018 and 2019, a fact that has a number of long-term repercussions.

"An analysis of the government's opinion on the report for 2019 shows that the competent bodies acted or act in only 20% of the recommendations, which is less also in relation to the report for 2015 (29%), which the parliament did not adopt," says Vidović, whose eight-year term expired on 1 March. She did not apply for re-election.

"Especially worrying is the government's failure to respond to as many as 60% of the recommendations," says Vidović, who in her report for 2020 gave as many as 142 recommendations for stronger human rights protection in almost all areas of life, addressing them mostly to the competent ministries.

She also says that the Office for Human and Ethnic Minority Rights, as the body in charge of reporting on the implementation of the public ombudsman's reports, has not done so since her report for 2013.

"The absence of parliamentary debate evidently has a number of long-term repercussions that do not contribute to better human rights protection," says Vidović, noting that the Ministry of the Interior is still denying her office direct access to data on the treatment of irregular migrants in its computer system.

Most complaints refer to health system

The Office of the Public Ombudswoman, which in 2020 had 53 employees, acted in close to 5,000 cases, of which slightly over 2,900 were new ones, an increase of 16% from 2019.

This was mostly due to the coronavirus pandemic and earthquakes which have strongly affected human rights in Croatia, Vidović says, noting that just as in 2019, most of the complaints last year referred to the health system (328). For the first time, among the five most frequent types of complaints, with an increase of 49%, were public utilities.

Around 10% of all the new cases referred to the coronavirus epidemic and the number of such complaints would have probably been much higher had the office of the public ombudswoman not been damaged in the 22 March 2020 earthquake, which prevented it from receiving complaints regularly in the first months of the epidemic.  

The epidemic has strongly affected both patients and health workers, who have taken the brunt of the health crisis, Vidović says.

As regards patients, according to data from the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO), in the first ten months of 2020 the number of visits to family doctors dropped by 21.5% compared to 2019, the number of visits by pre-school children dropped by 22.6%, and of those by women by 20.7%. At the same time, the number of services for which physical contact is not necessary rose by one-third.

Members of the public complained to the ombudswoman about having to wait in lines outside health clinics, having to speak about their health problems and family circumstances without any privacy and about being examined through the window of their family doctor's office.

Waiting lists for specialist examinations have not grown smaller and for certain types of examinations they have grown longer. The epidemic and the mobilisation of the health system in March and April, when only medical emergencies and COVID-19 cases were dealt with, caused a new disruption because a large number of examinations, diagnostic procedures and surgeries were cancelled or postponed until further notice, says Vidović.

According to HZZO data, the number of appointments for first-time specialist examinations dropped significantly in 2020 (from 129,356 in 2019 to 55,007), as did the number of follow-up appointments (280,599 as against 515,590 in 2019). The Health Ministry established a call centre to redirect patients to other hospitals in Zagreb but aside from that measure, the plans are not known as to how to provide citizens, within a reasonable time, with all medical services, says Vidović.

She also notes that Croatia has a shortage of family medicine teams (-121), pediatric health care teams (-52, mostly in Zagreb), dental medicine teams (-205) and gynecology teams (-58).

More than 270 decisions by national COVID-19 response team

Vidović also comments on decisions made by the national COVID-19 response team, saying that "its initial, as well as most of its subsequent decisions restricted basic rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and international documents, from freedom of movement and assembly to the right to privacy." She describes as particularly worrying the ban on or restriction of private gatherings.

She notes that the granting of permits to leave one's place of residence was uneven, and in some cases "some members of a household obtained them while other members of the same household were denied those permits without any explanation."

The permits also obstructed access to public services for residents of rural areas and islands, while the cancellation of public transport made health and social services in remote areas less available, notably for elderly people.

Citizens' having problem getting around the new circumstances was also due to the large number of decisions made by the national team, 271 by 13 January 2021.

Lack of timely and verified information

In her report for 2020, Vidović also comments on the Zagreb earthquake, noting that media and social networks showed that citizens did not receive timely and verified information on the competent institutions and available help, with the situation having been additionally complicated by epidemiological restrictions and restriction of movement. Public disputes about the way of financing post-earthquake reconstruction between the City of Zagreb and the competent ministry and objections that independent experts were not sufficiently consulted in the decision-making process have deepened mistrust of state institutions, she says.

She notes that "many citizens still do not know what to do and how to exercise their rights, and their mistrust of state institutions and the system is great."

By 18 January 2021, 202 applications were submitted regarding the exercise of legal rights related to reconstruction, she says, repeating that it is necessary to form mobile teams consisting of staff from the Construction Ministry and/or the City of Zagreb to advise citizens on the ground, free of charge, about their rights and help them write their applications.

The direct damage from the quake has been estimated at more than HRK 86 billion, and it is evident that reconstruction process will be long, complex and financially demanding, Vidović says in her report for 2020.

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ZAGREB, 12 March, 2021 - In four years Croatia met 281 recommendations in eight acquis areas, successfully completing the Schengen evaluation procedure, the Interior Ministry said on Friday after a meeting of EU interior ministers who discussed security and migrations.

The Portuguese presidency and Commissioner Ylva Johansson informed the Council that Croatia had successfully completed the Schengen evaluation procedure which began in June 2015 and ended in May 2019, the ministry said in a press release.

In the most comprehensive evaluation of preparedness for membership of the Schengen area, Croatia met 281 recommendations in eight Schengen acquis areas, including 145 pertaining to external border control.

Early in February, the Council confirmed that Croatia had met all the recommendations in that, the most demanding evaluation area, the ministry said, adding that in the past two weeks bilateral meetings were held with four member states which were unsure if Croatia had indeed met all the membership requirements.

On 2 March, Interior Minister Davor Božinović met with all the EU ambassadors accredited in Croatia at which he informed them in detail of everything Croatia had done in the past three and a half years to ensure full application of all Schengen standards.

"The ministers endorsed the report by the Portuguese presidency and Commissioner Johansson, without debate thereby confirming the completion of the Schengen evaluation procedure for Croatia," the ministry said.

Croatia's job and goal now is to prepare everything that is necessary for the Council of the EU to adopt a political decision on the Schengen membership, the ministry added.

Croatia evaluated as no other EU member state

"Croatia successfully passed the most comprehensive and the most detailed evaluation, like no other EU member state," said Božinović, who attended a video conference of the Home Affairs Council.

He added that Johansson said that this was the final confirmation of Croatia's preparedness to join the Schengen Area, while the chairman of the Council of the EU, Portuguese Interior Minister Eduardo Cabrita, supported Schengen enlargement to Croatia.

The ministry said the Council held the first debate on a draft directive on the resilience of critical subjects, which is aimed at further contributing to the implementation of EU Security Union Strategy targets.

The Portuguese presidency reported on the external dimension, border protection and solidarity. Another priority is working on the establishment of legal migration routes to more effectively curb illegal ones.

Stronger cooperation with third countries

The European Commission presented a report on strengthening cooperation with third countries in returns and readmissions as well as a 2019 report on the evaluation of cooperation in readmission.

Božinović said Croatia saw the former report as an important step forward in dealing with the return of migrants illegally staying in the EU.

"All Commission activities to use the potential of the EU visa policy are welcome, in an effort to encourage third countries to cooperate more constructively in the readmission of their citizens, as well as the possibilities available to us in other areas, development and trade arrangements for example," he said.

It would be useful to supplement initiatives with lists of safe third countries and safe countries of origin which would make it easier for the relevant services to swiftly make decisions on asylum or returns, Božinović added.

In concluding readmission agreements, priority should be given to countries of origin, the ministry said, adding that Božinović also pointed to the problem of transit countries.

Croatia supported strengthening cooperation with North African states in all areas that can contribute to strengthening stability in Africa, which would then facilitate dealing with the root causes of migrations towards the EU, the ministry said.

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ZAGREB, 12 March, 2021 - Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman on Friday thanked his Greek counterpart Nikolaos Dendias for his country's aid to Croatia after last year's devastating earthquakes.

"I'm taking this opportunity to thank Minister Dendias for the generous and prompt humanitarian aid that Greece sent to earthquake-hit areas in Croatia," Grlić Radman said in Athens, where he arrived for an official visit a day after visiting Cyprus.

"Greece itself was recently hit by strong earthquakes and I'm conveying our support and willingness to help," he added.

Greece was struck by two tremors earlier this month, the strongest measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, which caused material damage but no fatalities.

Support for Croatia's membership bids

Grlić Radman also thanked Dendias for the Greek support for Croatia's accession to MED7, a group which comprises seven Mediterranean EU member states - Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain.

He also thanked Dendias for supporting Croatia's accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the euro and Schengen areas.

The two ministers underlined the importance of continuing EU enlargement to Southeast Europe and of Brussels having a consistent policy so that candidates do not lose the European perspective.

Grlić Radman cited Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is having a hard time managing the migrant crisis, and underlined solidarity with Greece, which is also on the front line of that "big political, security and economic problem."

The minister said they were pleased with the increase in Croatian-Greek trade, singling out the Greek company Avax, which is building access roads to the Pelješac Bridge in Croatia.

 For more about earthquakes in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 12 March, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović on Friday said that Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković has done something that is unprecedented and impermissible by asking him, as the proposer, to supplement his draft decision on the selection of the Supreme Court president.

Jandroković sent back Milanović's draft decision after identifying some shortcomings.

Milanović said that Jandroković put his recommendation for the Supreme Court candidate "in a drawer," underscoring that Jandroković has no right to do so.

"He has no right to do that, whatever the HDZ majority in the Committee on the Constitution, thinks," Milanović told reporters in Požega after attending an oath giving ceremony by the 29th generation of volunteer army recruits.

Only thing protecting Jandroković from consequences is his immunity

Milanović said that the Speaker had done something he is not allowed to and the "only thing protecting him from the consequences is his immunity."

"He stole the document I sent to the parliament and allowed himself to interpret it... and assess the legality of my recommendation," claimed Milanović, adding that only the parliament can decide on the legality of something and not Jandroković.

"In future too he or anyone else can do what they want with documents and proposals. That is (ruling party) HDZ's message to parliament and its partners in the government... and if they want to agree to Jandroković shelving issues at his discretion and conducting a legislative analysis of a proposal's admissibility, let them do so. That is the road to tyranny," underscored Milanović.

Jandroković has privatised the position of Parliament Speaker

Milanović called out Jandroković for "privatising the position of Parliament Speaker," which the "HDZ majority in the parliamentary Committee on the Constitution gave him the right to do."

Milanović underscored that his recommendation for president of the Supreme Court, Zlata Đurđević, is a good choice, reiterating his stance that a public call for applications for the position is not transparent and that he as the president of the country has the authority to recommend a candidate.

"If you don't like it, abolish it, but it exists - all my authority and duty is to make a recommendation and I did so and that is the most transparent way possible. The public call is not transparent. Hundreds of Croatian lawyers are perhaps scared and don't want to participate in a travesty... Professor Đurđević is my candidate. Reject her, I dare you!" said Milanović.

He also commented on criticism by some constitutional law experts of his refusing to support one of the candidates that applied for the position, saying that these were people who wish to become Constitutional Court judges and are just waiting outside the Constitutional Court door waiting for a public call so they "can jump in."

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ZAGREB, 12 March, 2021 - Croatian parliamentary parties on Friday endorsed the proposal to ratify the Agreement on Mutual Protection of Classified Information between the governments of Croatia and Spain.

During the discussion, Zvonimir Troskot (Bridge) noted that Croatia and Spain had had good bilateral relations since the 1990s, sharing the same principles and goals.

"Both countries are facing the same challenges - migration, the fight against terrorism, climate change, Spanish companies are already present on our market, so why are we ratifying this agreement only now?" Troskot asked.

Juro Martinović, State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice and Administration, said that "there is nothing spectacularly new" in the Agreement. "States always regulate such matters. Under international law, Croatia is a successor to many agreements concluded by (former Yugoslavia)," he added.

Martinović said that the Agreement had been signed on 15 December 2020 and that it established a legal framework for the protection of classified information that is generated or exchanged between the parties, and designated competent authorities for the implementation of the Agreement. The Agreement also determines equivalent classification levels, national measures to protect classified information and mechanisms for transmission of such information.

Independent MP Marijana Petir asked Martinović if Croatia had similar agreements with other EU countries and whether there had been any violations of those agreements, to which he said that he had no knowledge of any violations.

Ivan Budalić of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that Croatia had similar agreements with many countries, including Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Sweden and Italy. 

Dalija Orešković (Centre party) was interested to know who had decided on concluding the Agreement, who had appointed the delegation and whether the President of the Republic was involved in the process, to which Martinović said that the Agreement enters into force after it is signed by the President of the Republic and published in the Official Gazette and the two governments exchange notes.

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